Unfading, Like the Flower
by Waxing Slain
Summary: 1993. Lucine Harris. She's quite certain that Professor Lupin hadn't meant to leave his book behind and she's quite sure it would be very rude to start reading it.  Review.  M for language foul, mostly  and eventual character death.


**DISCLAIMER: **_I_

_ solemnly swear that I am up to no good and I certainly do not own the right to HP._

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><p><strong>A.N.:<strong>

I really ought to finish Leola's story but I figure I'll be done with that one in two more chapter anyway and then this little plot bunny/baby popped up and I just had to go on with it. Curse me and my inability to focus! ARGH! Anyway, read, review, share, enjoy, etc, etc. Just effing review.

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><p>~In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.~<p>

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

She was certain that Professor Lupin had not meant to leave his book there on his desk. He had seemed so absorbed in it while they, his Sixth Years, had been testing that he could not have possibly meant to have left it out. With cold hands, Lucine Harris picked it up and trotted after the loping figure of Professor Lupin. She lost him in the crowd and with a flustered sigh, she shoved the book into her satchel and headed off for the Ravenclaw Common Room.

"_It cannot be seen, cannot be felt_

_Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt_

_lies behind stars and under hills,_

_And empty holes it fills _

_It comes first and follows after_

_Ends life, kills laughter. _What am I?_" _was the riddle for her today.

She thought for a moment, grinning all the while. It was a fairly easy one, considering she'd read it a book once. _Ah, Tolkien_, she thought with nostalgia too great for her own years. She did miss her _Muggle_ books though. _Muggle-born. _Oddly enough, the word hadn't lost any of it's sting since her First Year when a group of ill-tempered Fifth Year Slytherins had heckled her after the Sorting. Well, she was smarter than them now anyway. She could probably tell them lots of things that they didn't know. She could tell them now that she did find out that Tolkien himself was a wizard which was not that surprising all things considered. He left his magic woven in his words and in his stories without actually having to cast a single spell despite apparently having a great proficiency at wordless, wandless magic.

"Darkness," she answered quickly before slipping quietly into the Common Room. She set herself up by the window when the journal she had found fell out of her bag. It fell open and Lucine could not help but see that it was handwritten.

"It's a journal," she muttered to no one but herself. Too curious for her own good, she sat down and opened the journal to the first page. In swirling, delicate handwriting it read: _Amarantha Rosier. 1980. _Other random things were scrawled onto the page and others yet were scribbled out. She thought she read something like:_ Stop reading over my shoulder, Sirius. _And something else like: _Dorcas is such a slag. _Still strangely curious, she turned the page yet again.

_13 of February 1980_

_Full moon tonight. I can see it through my window. Same bedroom I had when I a kid. It feels strange being back here after so many years. Well, alright, it's only been five but it feels like ages since I left. The moon's staring down at me and I have to wonder if the boys are together tonight. I don't think they know I know about his _Furry Little Secret,_ as James calls it but I know all the same. I'm worried about Remus though...th_

She shut it suddenly and violently enough that a little puff of dust floated out of the pages. She felt as though she were prying into someone's life, someone's personal feelings and reflections. It was not her place to pry like this. _Remus? _she asked herself as she tried desperately to remember where she had heard that name before. Slightly flustered, she set it aside carefully and pulled out her battered copy of _Advanced Rune Translations_. It was interesting but not as interesting as the journal. She set her translation aside and picked the journal up again and continued reading.

_I'm worried about Remus though. I saw him at the last meeting and I've never seen him look so terrible. Pale and shaking and drawn. I tried talking to Sirius but every time I bring up Remus's, er, _condition_, he hardly won't let me talk at all. Tries to tell me I don't know anything, that I'm out of touch, that I don't know what I'm talking about. I can't even... It's damn infuriating! I swear if we weren't family (and that's tenuous enough! I'm his mother's great niece's third cousin, thrice removed by murder, marriage, and murder again. It hardly counts!), I would have throttled him senseless ages ago. I should have throttled him senseless ages ago. Should've, could've, would've and didn't. All relative now anyway. I remember in our Fifth Year that bastard got me into so much trouble with Sprout. And over some stupid Seventh Year he swore he was in love with. He never even spoke to her! Never! Pardon me as the whole ordeal has left me a little bitter. _

_"Please, 'Rantha? Please let me in? Or just teach me how?" he had pleaded with those eyes of his. Damn infuriating, that man is. So, naturally, being his unwitting wing-woman, I taught him how to get into our Common Room but does the brave, bold, bloody Gryffindor get into trouble? Oh, no, no, it was me because he ran off almost as soon as he tapped the wrong barrel. I told him it wasn't the right one. Several times actually._

_Ah, well, _C_'_est le _vie, as the fucking French say...Hang on a mo'; someone's at the door._


End file.
